Scalping
Scalping is the act of cutting or tearing a part of the human scalp, with hair attached, from the head. In Inglourious Basterds Lieutenant Aldo Raine demands that his men, The Basterds give him each, 100 scalps taken from 100 dead German soldiers. The Basterds are seen scalping German soldiers in the second chapter of the movie, and keeping them on a scalping ring, which is basically just a thick steel wire bent in a "@" shape. In the final chapter, Utivich scalps Landa's driver, after Aldo shoots him with Landa's gun. Trivia *Scalping was done by many cultures around the world, and many Native American tribes were known to perform scalping, but there was no universal scalping method among them. Since Aldo Raine is supposed to have Native ancestry, the role of scalping in the film is supposed to mirror the Native American attacks on the first European settlers in the US. However, scalping was also used by the American forces in many wars against the Native Americans, with many Indian scalps being sold in many parts of the US. *Although scalping was done on the dead and the mortally wounded as trophy collecting, it was also done sometimes on living individuals, with the purpose of inflicting terror or humiliation. *In the film, the only characters from the Basterds group not seen engaging in scalping are Aldo Raine, Hugo Stiglitz and Donny Donowitz. *The scalping method done in the film is completely wrong: the knife is shown cutting the skin off the cranium like one would peel a potato, which would not work, as there is no thick or any significant tissue between the head skin and cranium to slice it that way. Instead, one would slice the skin around the head, then yank the skin with the hair, in a similar way one would peel a banana or the fur off a rabbit. Interestingly enough, in the original script, the description of the scalping method is the correct one. It's possible that this was changed, due to the nature of the dummies used in the film, which probably had a thicker "skin" than that of a normal human. *When Omar scalps a dead soldier, the way the hairy skin comes off seems like it is a solid piece (he even seems to pick away bits of flesh off it with his knife), which shouldn't be possible, unless he carved out the skull along with the scalp. No doubt this was a prop malfunction. Behind the scenes Quentin Tarantino had all of the actors playing the Basterds go through a day of "scalping training" in preparation for the movie, and told them that the three best practice scalpers would be rewarded with close-ups of them doing just that in the film. A dummy of Tarantino appeared in the film as the first body being scalped by The Basterds. Gallery Film Omar scalps Tarantino dummy and a model 24 Stielhandgranate Grenade is in the lower left corner.jpg Stiglitz looks at dead Nazis.jpg Hirschberg laughs as Butz and Ludwig look scared.jpg Wilhelm Wicki & Butz.jpg Utivich scalps Hermann.jpg Behind the scenes Eli Roth testing scalping behind the scenes.jpg Eli Roth scalping behind the scenes.jpg External links *Scalping at Wikipedia Category:Activities